Ball Lab: Titleist Pro V1 Review

MyGolfSpy Ball Lab is where we quantify the quality and consistency of the golf balls on the market to help you find the best ball for your money. Today we’re evaluating the Titleist Pro V1. For more information, visit our About MyGolfSpy Ball Lab page.

About the Titleist Pro V1

By any reasonable measure, the Titleist Pro V1 is the #1 Ball in Golf. Individually, it’s the best-selling ball at retail and it, along with the Pro V1x, is the most played ball on the PGA TOUR. As it happens, it’s also now the top-ranked ball in Ball Lab.

Sorry if that spoils the surprise.

Filed under The More You Know … Titleist confused more than a few golfers when it swapped the profiles of the Pro V1 and Pro V1x several years ago, so it’s worth clarifying where the standard Pro V1 fits within the Titleist premium urethane lineup. Titleist classifies Pro V1 as a mid-trajectory, mid-spin ball. That’s largely true, relative to the ball market as a whole, though I’d argue the Pro V1 is perhaps just a tick lower than “mid” for both metrics.

On a comparative basis, the Pro V1x flies higher and spins more while AVX flies lower and spins less. AVX is also considerably softer. The “left” options confuse things just a bit but what’s worth remembering is that whether we’re talking about the limited-run Pro V1 Left Dot or the Pro V1x Left Dash, both fly similarly with less spin than their mainstream counterparts.

The 2021 version of the Pro V1 is a three-piece ball with 388 dimples. While under normal circumstances the overwhelming majority of Pro V1s sold in the U.S. are produced at the company’s Ball Plant 3 with demand outpacing production capabilities, it’s not uncommon to find balls made at Ball Plant 4 in Thailand on shelves.

As always, we purchased balls over the span of several months. Our first two dozen were produced at Ball Plant 3 while the third dozen came from Ball Plant 4.

Titleist Pro V1 — Compression

On our gauges, the Titleist Pro V1 has a compression of 87. While that’s three points softer than we measured the previous version, across the market as a whole, it’s still solidly within the firm category (though it is a bit on the softer side for a ball played on Tour). As you might expect, given the popularity of the Pro V1, nearly every company that makes a urethane-covered ball makes one in the +/- 90-compression range.

Titleist Pro V1 — Diameter and Weight

It’s not particularly surprising that we found no issues with either roundness or conformance to the USGA rules for weight. To date, we’ve measured 30 dozen Titleist golf balls across 10 different models. We’ve yet to find a single ball that’s over the weight limit and have only measured one ball (a TrueFeel) that failed to meet our standard for roundness.

Titleist Pro V1 — Inspection

Our visual inspection found no significant issues.

Centeredness and Concentricity

As is common, we found a couple of balls with slightly inconsistent mantle thickness but no significant concentricity issues were found.

Core Consistency

There was appreciable color variation between the U.S.- and Thailand-produced balls but no inconsistencies (chunks, debris, etc.) were noted within the mix. Core color variation is not uncommon and typically no cause for concern. When there is variation, we defer to the gauges.

Cover

While we did note some pin marks left over from the painting process, we found no notable cover damage.

Titleist Pro V1 — Consistency

In this section, we detail the consistency of the Titleist Pro V1. While the above sections largely evaluate conformance to USGA rules, our consistency metrics provide a measure of how similar the balls in our sample are to one another relative to all of the models we’ve tested to date.

Titleist Pro V1 – One Ball At a Time

The chart below shows the weight, diameter and compression measurements for each of the balls in our Titleist Pro V1 sample.

Weight Consistency

• Weight consistency for the Pro V1 was within the average range.
• While the balls were produced at different factories, Box 2 and Box 3 were most similar.

Diameter Consistency

• Diameter was generally consistent from box to box with no indication of significant variation between factories.
• Overall, the weight consistency of the Titleist Pro V1 falls within the good range.

Compression Consistency

• For our total compression consistency metric, the Titleist Pro V1 rates as excellent—the only ball in our database to achieve the rating.
• Looking at the average compression in the sample, the Titleist Pro V1 rates as Good.
• Comparing the compression deltas (the difference in compression across the three points measured on each ball), the Titleist Pro V1 again rates as Good.
• None of the balls in the sample had a compression delta greater than 2.5 compression points.
• Despite the balls being produced in different factories, we found no appreciable difference in average compression across the sample.

Titleist Pro V1  — Summary

To learn more about our test process, how we define “bad” balls, check out our About MyGolfSpy Ball Lab page.

The Good

• The most consistent ball tested to date in Ball Lab.
• The only ball thus far to achieve an Excellent rating for total compression consistency.
• No significant defects within our sample.
• 100 percent of the sample conforms to USGA rules.

The Bad

• At $49.99, the Titleist Pro V1 is the most expensive ball on the market from a major manufacturer.

Titleist Pro V1 — Final Grade

The Titleist Pro V1 golf ball gets an overall grade of 97.

The score is the highest we’ve recorded so far with the Excellent rating for compression consistency pushing it past the others.

To an extent, this is what golfers should expect given the $49.99 price point and Titleist’s emphasis on quality and consistency.

An overview of the equipment we use can be found here. To learn more about our test process, how we define “bad” balls and our True Price metric, check out our About MyGolfSpy Ball Lab page.